There exists in the marketplace a printer mounted on a base cabinet which contains a sheet feeder for supplementing the sheet capacity of the normal sheet storage and feeding capacity of the printer itself. Such a unit is marketed by Hewlett-Packard as a "LASER-JET" or a 5Si/55 MX Printer" with capacity to utilize various auxiliary devices, for example, to feed envelopes and to collate or separate job output into either a receiving tray or a roll away multi-bin mailbox type stacker.
As a result, such a unit is quite versatile and permits ready printing of various types of jobs. However, the multi-bin mailbox is quite expensive and occupies significant floor space or footprint.
In any case, such printers, with or without auxiliary equipment, as mentioned above, require a support stand, base or table.
For purpose of feeding sheets straight through to a receiving tray for envelopes or large sheets, the above referenced unit has a straight through or by pass paper path leading to a receiving tray located above the space in which the multi-bin sheet receiver may be located and an output feed mechanism must be provided for the receiving tray or the roll up multi-bin unit.
In addition, a simple stacker is known for application to the above referenced printer which is mounted at the outlet side of the base cabinet and feeds sheets from the printer to a box-like receptacle for a large number of sheets. However, such a stacker is used in lieu of the multi-bin device, but, yet, still is an external structure requiring floor space for utilization.
There also is known a multi-bin mailbox type receiver of such construction as to be capable of mounting above and over the top of a printer such as that referenced above, as illustrated in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 557,399, filed Nov. 13, 1995, co-owned herewith.